Coffee
by Fic Fairy
Summary: In Abuse S2, Stabler pushes Benson to open up to him, and when he fails, offers to make her coffee instead. This is my take on what might have happened next. I'm new to this fandom so the more feedback the better! NOW COMPLETE! Sequel coming soon!
1. Let Me Get You A Coffee

**Authors Notes - This follows on from the scene in the season 2 episode 'Abuse' where Elliot draws parallels between Olivia and Ashley (the little girl being emotionally neglected by her mother), but Olivia refuses to discuss them so Elliot gives up and says "I'll get you a coffee.". This is my own little AU take on what might have come next! **

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**Coffee**

**By FicFairy**

"Elliot."

He knew what was coming. It wasn't hard to miss. The look in her eyes, the hesitation in her voice, the scenario that had brought them there, he'd been there before and he knew what it all meant. Knew what it all meant, knew where it was going, but didn't know how to stop it, which was why he had no choice but to let it run its course. Let Olivia run her course.

"Yeah?"

"Does coffee have to be 'just' coffee?"

He didn't respond, although he knew precisely what her words meant, the implication was pretty hard to miss. He didn't respond because he had no response, at least no response that wouldn't embarrass the hell out of his partner and so he just waited, watching her face, searching for some sign that she was realising on her own how inappropriate her words were.

Nothing. Just the sad puppy dog look. The one he hated. The one that broke his heart.

In the end, it was too much to bear. Yes, embarrassing her was hard, but it was the only way to deal with her, get her to pull herself together, if she wasn't able to do it on her own.

"Olivia." He tried not to sound too much like a patronising father, since he knew she hated that even more than Maureen did. "You know I can't." He held his left hand up, wiggling his finger, displaying his wedding band for her. There was that horrendous moment where she looked like she wanted to die and then, to her credit, she did it, she turned it around.

"Good." She gave him her trademark smile, the cheeky one, the teasing one, the one didn't quite reach her eyes, "Wasn't interested anyway."

He knew he ought to let it go. Ought to head to the coffee machine like nothing had happened and move the scene on. Move them on. Get them back to the way they should be. Benson and Stabler, Stabler and Benson.

But he couldn't. For a multitude of reasons. Because they'd been in this exact place too many times before. Because she needed help. Because she wasn't Benson, she was Olivia and she needed him to be a friend instead of a partner. It might have sounded like a come on, but in fact, it was more. A lot more. It was a cry for help.

He moved to her side, placed his hands on her shoulders, could feel them shaking, the only telltale sign that she was close to tears. To breaking point.

"I don't think coffee's going to cut it this time Benson." The Benson was necessary. He needed to lure her into a false sense of security. If she knew what he was planning she'd resist, chain herself metaphorically to her desk and refuse to leave for love nor money. So no, business as usual to fool her. "O'Grady's. 10 minutes. Be there or," he glanced towards a notice board in one corner of the squad room, the small ads one that they used to hawk unwanted gifts, their spouses businesses and kids requests for babysitting jobs, "I'm sticking a sign up there that says you want my ass."

"You are an ass." Olivia responded, but she was already getting to her feet, knowing there was little point in arguing. He watched her as she headed for the bathrooms, and then called after her.

"10 minutes Benson. And don't be late."

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She appreciated the 10 minute break It gave her the perfect opportunity to lose the half a bagel and diet soda and 2 cups of coffee she'd managed to consume since breakfast time. Not that it stopped her feeling sick to her stomach; at Ashley's response when she realised that Olivia wasn't taking her home, at the memory of those cots crammed into that room, and thanks to the abject humiliation of realising she'd hit on her partner. Rule number 1 of being a cop. You do not hit on your partner. Especially if you're female. Unless you're keen on losing your badge, your self respect, or both; in which case, it's a must.

She rested her head on the mirror in the bathroom and closed her eyes. She was looking for an escape, but it didn't come. Instead the cots just appeared more vividly, with Elliot sat on one of them giving her come to bed eyes, while Ashley sat underneath it, looking desperate and disappointed.

What the hell had she done?

It wasn't about her mother though. Elliot was wrong on that. Yeah, sure, there were parallels, slight parallels, maybe even more than he knew, but that didn't mean it had influenced her in any way. She was just trying to help the kid. That was her job wasn't it?

She opened her eyes again, splashed her face with water, which if anything, causing her mascara to run, made her look worse not better. She thought about retrieving her make up bag from her desk and trying to fix her face, but decided against it. Heaven forbid that Elliot should think she'd made herself pretty for him. Instead, she wiped the mascara away, took a deep breath, headed back to the squad room, grabbed her coat and left.

There was a Scotch in O'Grady's with her name on it.

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He didn't speak to her when she arrived, just slid a tumbler of Whisky across the table to her. She took it but didn't knock it back. She'd seen her mother perform that action too many times to start following suit. She drank, sure, but carefully. In a measured fashion. She had no wish to follow in her mother's footsteps.

Instead, she just sipped it, then looked up at Elliot.

That was when she saw it.

She pulled a face, "Oh. Elliot. No. Not tonight. Please."

He held his hands up, in what was clearly meant to be a submissive gesture, but no amount of gesticulating could change the look on his face. The concerned father one. She looked at him hopefully,

"Please Elliot. Can we just drop this? I've had a long day," That was true, "I'm tired." That was true too. "Its just not the right time."

She thought it would work. It usually did. But not - apparently - this time.

"When will be the right time Liv?"

Oh god. Liv. She was in more trouble than she'd thought. She could count on one hand the number of times he'd called her Liv. It didn't bode well.

"When you finally crack? When you finally give into the grief and 'go'? We're waiting for it. For you. Every second of every day. Craagen, Munch, Finn, me. Even Kathy."

"Kathy?" She wasn't particularly enamoured with the idea of any of them sitting round pondering her mental state, but the mention of his wife truly perplexed her. "My grief is Kathy's business?"

He nodded slowly, and she realised he hesitanted suddenly, leading her to suspect that she wouldn't like what was coming next. She wasn't wrong.

"You spend day in, day out, with her husband, in a possession of a gun. Sure Liv, its her business."

Her jaw dropped, as all she could do was stare at him. Incredulous. Unable to belief what she was hearing, "She thinks I might shoot you? And she's calling me crazy." She reached down to her belt clip, yanking her gun from its holster, and pushing it across the table to Elliot, "Here, take it if it makes you feel better." She downed her drink then, her fear of turning out like her mother dulled by the insane turn of events the night was taking. As the amber liquid burnt her throat, she looked at him, shaking her head, "Do you think I might shoot you?"

He sighed, "I don't know what you might do." She opened her mouth to argue but he didn't give her chance, "I mean, if it's any consolation, I don't think it would be intentional. But you can be a loose cannon. What if you lose it with a perp? What if you lose it with yourself? I'm your partner, it would be very easy for me to end up between you and a bullet."

She wanted to tell him he was wrong. Because he was wrong. But yet, she didn't know how. Words were cheap. Actions spoke louder. Especially hers. And so, yes he was wrong. But…

She got to her feet, "I need another drink."

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It didn't take much to see he'd hurt her, and as bad as he felt about it, he saw it as a necessary evil if he was going to help her. That said, when she came back to the table he realised instantly that it was going to take plenty to get her to talk; she was clearly in no mood for it. She'd put down the shutters. Closed off. Gone cold.

"Olivia." He said gently, reaching across the table to touch her hand gently, although she quickly pulled it away, glaring at him reproachfully. "Something is going to give with you if you don't come to terms with who you are and where you come from, and with what you've lost. Right now, you deal by getting over involved with vics and coming on to me. That won't be enough for you forever."

"I don't come on to you." It surprised him that she didn't deny her emotional involvement with the victims they encountered, but even more so that she was so vehement in her denial with regards to him. After their encounter in the squad room he'd assumed it was undeniable. He looked at her questioningly,

"No?"

She shrugged, "Today doesn't count."

He wasn't giving her that, "Today does count." Again she shrugged, "So today counts. That's once. Once Stabler. Munch has hit on you more time's than that."

He allowed her the joke, a small deflection of humour, even responded with his own, "Munch is hotter than you are." but he was quick to move on again, "Three times Olivia."

He saw her eyes flash angrily and braced himself for her response which he didn't doubt would be savage. She was on the defensive now, that much was obvious.

"Fine. Its 3. And no doubt you're about to list them for me. Well fine. Do it. Boost your ego and enjoy it. Because I fail to see what its got to do with anything."

"What it has to do with is me being your port in the storm. The stranger you cling to. I am to you, what you were to that little girl."

She said nothing in response. Not at first. Just put her head in her hands and then slowly looked up at him wearily, and then,

"You're not a stranger."

And that was the moment, the moment he knew he had her. She'd stopped with the debating, the denying, the splitting of hairs was only her way of holding onto the final vestiges of control in their discussion. He got up from his seat opposite her, and moved to sit beside her, taking her hands in his. When she didn't argue, instead gripping his hands tightly, he pushed her just a little bit further.

"I'm not your father either."

"But you're always there for me." The words were a million miles away from anything he'd heard from her before. They were soft, almost whimpered, a childlike declaration that seemed incongruous coming from a grown woman. And suddenly, because of them, all bets were off. Things were different. He reached round, wrapped an arm around her. "Of course I am. I'm your partner. That's why I want to help. That's why I want you to talk."

She looked torn, and he could understand why. He'd never seen her look as vulnerable as she did in that moment, and he knew she wouldn't be comfortable with the feeling. That said, she needed to talk, and for the first time she probably knew it as clearly as he did. He pulled her closer, and then - hoping it wasn't a step too far - he gave her a final nudge. "That's why, if you turn a gun on yourself some day, I'll be right beside you, trying to stop you, even if it means taking the bullet myself."

Her response was a sob. A sound she'd always been so keen to hide from him in the past, and yet now failed to do so, if she'd even been attempting to in the first place. And then, clinging to him more tightly, she looked up at him, and uttered the words he'd waited their whole partnership to hear.

"Ok. I'll talk. If you'll listen, I'll talk to you…"

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	2. Unravelling

**Thank you to those who have reviewed or favourited so far! I'm really touched! Also, just a little note of caution here, there's some sensitive subject matter so approach carefully! And of course, please R&R, as I said initially I need all the encouragement / advice I can get!**

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She wasn't sure how it had happened. She'd never intended to get to this point with Elliot, with anyone in fact. But somehow, in his own special, Elliot type way, he'd finally carved her down. Finally broken her open.

That said, he wasn't having all of her. Not by a long shot. There was too much she couldn't say, wouldn't say. But she'd give him something. After all, he'd made it perfectly clear she needed to talk, and actually, to give him his due, he was right.

She pulled away from him slightly, suddenly aware of how physically close they'd become, and a little embarrassed about it, given the way she'd hit on him. Then she took a deep breath and shakily spoke.

"My name's Olivia Benson, and I let myself get emotionally involved with the Austin case."

Elliot smiled, "Well, well done Olivia Benson. But I don't really think that was ever really up for debate. Would you care to expand?"

She should have hated him, or at least been mad at the way he was pushing her. But she'd done her anger already that evening, and could never stay that way with Elliot for long.

"Ok." She looked away from him, not keen to be looking him in the eyes when she made her next announcement, "My name's Olivia Benson, and I let myself get emotionally involved with Ashley Austin-Black because I identified with her." she forced out her final words, "As a vic."

The confession made her want to vomit all over again, but Elliot, moving in beside her to kiss her cheek proved to be enough of a distraction to stop her. She looked at him questioningly, "Did you just kiss me Elliot Stabler?"

He shrugged, "I'm proud of you. I don't know what I expected, but not that. Not the way you described yourself."

He might have been proud of her, but Olivia was conflicted, had been since the word 'vic' had left her lips. It seemed accurate, appropriate, until it was out in the open, and now… now it felt like overkill.

"I shouldn't have used that word." She protested, "No one ever hurt me. My mother never hurt me."

"No one ever hurt Ashley." Elliot said gently, "Except Ashley herself. You still saw her as a victim." She couldn't argue with that so said nothing, staring down at the table top like it was suddenly the most interesting thing in the world, only lifting her gaze again when Elliot asked his next question.

"Did you hurt yourself too?"

She opened her mouth to deny it. But somehow the truth came out instead.

"Once." She said softly, "I hurt myself once."

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Her words hung in the air at first, as Elliot took them in and digested them. He wasn't sure really whether he was shocked or not. He'd suspected as much, clearly, or else he wouldn't have asked the question, but he'd not expected her to come clean so easily, if at all, and now she had, he wasn't entirely sure how to handle it.

"Where?" He asked, gently, pulling on the kid gloves, although he knew she'd probably resent it.

"In the bathroom." That hadn't been what he meant, and as he looked at her, trying to decide if she was genuinely missing the point and just trying to avoid the question, he saw her smile slightly and realised that she knew full well what it was he wanted to know.

"Olivia." He prompted, coming across more like a father running out of patience than he would have liked, not that it mattered since she knew the game was up and answered him.

"I cut my thighs. With a razor."

Again, her frankness stunned him, along with what she was telling him. Of all the things he'd been expecting, deliberate, intentional self harm wasn't really one of them. She must have sensed his surprise because she laughed slightly,

"You seem shocked. Why Elliot? Did you have me down as more People Magazine, less Sylvia Plath? All kinds of kids self harm you know."

He reached out, stroking her arm, "I know. But," he sighed, looking into her eyes, trying to imagine all the things that she must have been through that contributed to who she was, the good and the bad, "I feel sad for you Liv. Sad that you felt you had to do that. How old were you?"

She hesitated before she responded, and when she did so, he knew instantly why.

"You were 11? Kathleen is 11." He tried to put his daughter in Olivia's shoes, trying to imagine a situation where she'd feel so desperate that hurting herself would be the only way to cope, but he couldn't do it, it hurt too much. Olivia must have seen that because she was quick to comfort him.

"I wasn't Kathleen El, I didn't have a father like you, or a mother like Kathy. I didn't have a Maureen or a Dicky or an Elizabeth. It was just me. I was alone. You don't have to worry about Kathleen."

"But I do have to worry about you." He reached out, stroked her cheek. It was an intimate gesture, and one that at any other time might have felt out of place. But not at that moment. At that moment he wanted to be there for her. Wanted to give her whatever it was she needed. "Tell me why you did it?"

"Mom was drunk again." It was the first time he'd ever heard her refer to her mother as mom, and the effect was startling. With very little effort it was quite easy for him to believe he was talking to little Olivia. 11 year old Olivia. "Go on." He said gently, urging her to continue.

"She'd been at a work thing. Come home real late. Real drunk. I'd stayed up, I was excited to show her a medal I'd won for track. I was on the team you know. My coach said I could easily make JV one day. Varsity even."

"Impressive stuff." The words were out of his mouth before he could stop them, and he thought she might resent it, find it patronising, but actually she didn't. She smiled, "Thanks Eli."

The smile was brief though, because then she continued, "She got real pissed at me because I should have been in bed. Wasn't even slightly interested. So I got pissed right back at her and told her I was going to live with my dad."

"Ouch." He could imagine the scenario all too easily. He knew what Olivia was like when she was fired up about something, and the combination of a mouthy child and a drunk mother sounded like a dangerous set up from the get go. Even more so if you put a rapist father in the equation. "Did you know then what he'd done?"

"Not at that moment. But I did five seconds later."

Elliot felt his heart sink, "That was how she told you."

She nodded, wrapping her arms tightly around herself, "She'd always told me he was dead, but you know what kids are like. When I was 8 I became convinced she was lying. That he was alive but that her drinking had driven him away. I just thought," a tear trickled down her cheek, and he assumed from the fact that she just left it there that she wasn't even aware of it, too wrapped up in her story to notice it, "I just thought, that, I could go and be with him. That he would want me. It was dream, it was a fantasy but it kept me going when it got real bad at home." She was sobbing now, and once again he wrapped his arms round her, babying the adult, although he knew it was the child she'd once been that needed him more. "She took that away from me Elliot. She took it away from me."

He held her, stroking her hair, rocking her as she cried. She was breaking in the way that he'd always hoped she would, when he was there with her to hold her, support her and take care of her. That said, he was terrified. It was all very well breaking her, but he just hoped they'd be able to find their way through what came next.

"Liv," he said softly, when her tears finally slowed, "what happened next. After she told you what your father was, what he'd done?"

She laughed bitterly, "What do you think? She opened a bottle of gin, drank herself to oblivion and left me alone with the knowledge that I was the product of a rape. That was when I did it." She let her hand drop down into her lap, subconsciously tracing lines on her thighs, running her finger tips over the fabric of her trousers. Elliot reached out, entwined his fingers with hers, letting her drag them over her thigh along with her own. "Do you have scars?"

She sighed, "A little. They're small, thready. I didn't go too deep. It hurt too much." She looked embarrassed then, "And I know that was probably meant to be the point. But I was 11. I was a wimp. I don't even know why I did it. It just, I had to, well, you know, do something."

"I'm sure you did." He said gently, easily able to imagine how she'd reached that point now he knew the full story. There was one thing though that he was still curious about though. "But you never did it again?"

"No." Olivia smiled through her tears, "This is where being 11 was really rather great. Because things are dead simple when you're 11. I decided that I didn't want to be like my dad. I mean jeez, why would I want to be? So, I thought the furthest thing away from being like my dad was being a cop. I decided that night Eli, sat on the bathroom floor with blood all over me, that I'd do this. That I'd be a cop."

"And at 11 you knew that applicants to the force have to have a full medical and psychological assessment?"

She shook her head, again managing a weak smile, "I'd not done the research at that point, but I just guessed you had to be sane, and doing what I'd done, with the razor, it didn't feel very sane. So I didn't do it anymore."

"Well I'm glad." He told her, "I'm glad you never cut again and I'm glad you made the decision to be a cop. I wouldn't have wanted to miss out on having you as a partner."

Olivia laughed then, looking doubtful, "Seriously? Even though I get emotionally involved, and hit on your when I'm down and am generally just a huge pain in the ass."

"It could be worse." He said, pulling her closer, gently caressing her arm, wanting to help her relax, "You could be Munch."

"You said Munch was hot." She pointed out, referring to their earlier verbal sparring, "And," she added, sounding more than a little downcast, "at least you wouldn't have to worry about Munch turning his gun on you." She glanced at her own gun which was still laying discarded on the table, and he felt guilty that she'd taken his words so to heart, when he'd really only meant them to help her. He slipped a hand carefully under her chin and tilted her head up so she was looking at him,

"Liv. I wouldn't change you for anyone. Not Munch, not Fin, not anyone. Professionally you're the best thing that ever happened to me. And sure, you need a little help right now, but we'll get through it you and I. I promise."

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It felt odd, being that close to him. He was holding her so close, touching her in ways that only lovers had, looking so deep into her eyes. In any other scenario with any other guy, she'd be expecting him to lean in for a kiss within about the next 30 seconds.

But he wasn't any other guy. He was Elliot. And although she - loved - him, in some bizarre and random and loose definition of the word, and although she hit on him frequently both seriously and in jest, and although he was, most definitely, her port in the storm, it was never ever going to happen. It couldn't happen. Because of Kathy. And the kids. And the fact that she had a nasty habit of chewing men up and spitting them out again.

That said, it felt good to have him hold her. She was never very good at being held, mainly because she wasn't used to it. Her mother had never been the cuddling type, unless she was exceptionally drunk and having one of her "I love you sweetie" moments, that she'd have cherished except for the fact that the slurring made it sound so insincere and the smell of the alcohol on her mother's breath made her want to vomit. But this wasn't like that, it felt good. Really good.

"Do you hold Maureen like this?" She wasn't sure where the question came from. He wasn't her father, he'd already told her that. But thinking about her mother's drunken embraces, along with wanting to move away from any thoughts of anything sexual happening between them, made it seem like a question she wanted to ask.

If Elliot found it a curious question, he didn't comment, instead just nodding his head, "Sometimes. If she lets me. Which isn't as often as it used to be. But when she's sad, yeah, I do." He stroked her cheek, "Do you like it?"

She smiled, "It feels good, although," she glanced around the bar, becoming aware for the first time that their embrace was being clocked by a fair few of it's patrons, most of whom she suspected were off duty cops. There were certainly a few familiar faces among them. "people are looking Elliot."

"Let 'em look," He murmured, "unless you want me to let you go."

She shook her head instantly, hating the idea, feeling too safe and secure for the first time in her life to want to let the feeling slip away. She couldn't imagine anything worse. That said, she was worried about the curious glances they were attracting and didn't think either of them would benefit from word getting back to Cragen. She looked back at Elliot, slightly hesitantly, took a deep breath and then made a suggestion.

"Can we go back to my place?"

She saw a concerned expression cross Elliot's face and she knew what it was born of. She didn't even need the questioning look that followed at he held up four fingers. One finger for each time she'd hit on him, plus an additional one for her most recent suggestion. She reached out, pushed one of his fingers back down and then explained herself.

"Not a come on. Not in the slightest. I just want us to have some privacy." She swallowed hard, unable to believe what she was about to say. "I want to talk some more. There's a lot more I need to say."

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	3. Revelations

**Author's Note - Thanks again for the feedback. Please keep it coming. **

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He could hardly say no to her. He was the one who had pushed her to open up to him, he could hardly stop her when she was clearly in full flow just because he was concerned that things might get out of hand. Not that he'd let - 'that' - happen, but he was worried that she might up the ante on him if they were alone.

In spite of his reservations though, he took her by the hand and led her from the bar, once again trying to ignore the stares of their fellow cops. He'd actually spotted them long before she had, but just pretended he hadn't noticed because he knew she needed his comfort. The physical affection he'd been affording her.

She said little on the journey to her apartment, just sat quietly resting her head against the cab window, looking out at the New York streets. It didn't escape his notice though that she didn't let go of his hand for a second, gripping it tightly like Dicky or Elizabeth might in a crowded place. Like she was scared of losing him.

It was contradictory, he thought, that in one moment he'd think of her as a potential lover and the next as one of his kids. But that was Olivia. She was an enigma. She was looking to him to be everything she'd ever been without. He just hoped he was up to the challenge and wasn't going to end up hurting her all over again.

When they arrived she ushered him through to the living room, and then disappeared to the kitchen, returning with a bottle of wine and two glasses, before sitting beside him, looking a little awkward. He wondered if she regretted inviting him back now they were actually there, regretted putting herself in a position where she'd have to talk.

As she poured two glasses of wine, he asked her the question which had been on his mind since the cab journey.

"What were you thinking about on the way over here?"

She blushed a little, looking away shyly, "I was thinking that I don't know what I want from you. What I want you to be to me. There's no separation, no definition. I want you to my father and my lover and everything in between. Which is probably more than a little sick, and makes me something of a freak."

"Not at all." He put a reassuring hand on her shoulder, in spite of the fact that he knew that in light of what she'd just said he was probably asking for trouble. "I was thinking something very similar myself. I'm not sure what it is you want me to be either. So," he pulled her towards him and cuddled her close, "will you settle for being someone I care for? Someone I want to take care of?"

There was no reluctance in her response, as she curled into his arms, resting her head on his shoulder, and looked up at him as she nodded, "I'd like that. Which is…" she paused slightly, obviously looking for the right word, "… odd."

"Odd how?" He picked up one of the glasses of wine she'd poured and handed it to her, hoping that the question would be the prompt she'd need to start talking again. It worked.

"I don't like to be taken care of. I like to be the one doing the looking after. Its always been that way. I took care of my mother, although she'd never have admitted it, I took care of my friends and boyfriends - I was always the mother hen, always took on the lost causes."

"I could have predicted that." Elliot said, picking up his own glass and drinking from it, as he thought back over their time working together, remembering all the times with she fought for the underdog, taken care of a traumatised victim, and mothered scared children, "Its what makes you what you are Olivia. A damn good, compassionate, caring cop."

She shrugged, "It also makes me Olivia the control freak. It makes me the Olivia who ditched Cassidy because he made me breakfast."

That was new, Elliot thought. She'd never really wanted to discuss her ex's with him, especially Cassidy. Even though their 'thing' had been there, right in front of him, causing an atmosphere that you could cut with a knife in the squad room, she'd never offered him an ounce of real info on it, beyond the odd throwaway line. In spite of what he'd already learnt that evening there was apparently a lot more he had to learn about his partner.

"He made you breakfast?" He asked questioningly, before adding jokingly, "The cad. How dare he?"

Olivia laughed, but once again, her smile didn't reach her eyes. "He made me breakfast in bed." She explained, "Fresh fruit and bacon and egg and toast and juice and fresh coffee and even a flower on the tray." She looked at Elliot, to check if he understood, "I mean have you ever seen me eat a breakfast like that?"

He shook his head, "No. You're more of a coffee and a Danish in the squad room girl.

She beamed, a proper smile this time, "See. You know me. I don't like people thinking they can change me. Control me. I like to be the one running the show."

"To be fair," Elliot pointed out, "the poor boy was probably just trying to be nice."

"It didn't feel nice. It felt wrong. I didn't want him to make my breakfast. I get my own, I always have."

It could have been laughable, but Elliot was fast losing the urge to laugh as he read between the lines, gradually seeing the real crux of the problem. He hoped he was wrong, but on that day's evidence - not to mention her latest outburst, he suspected he wasn't.

"How old were you when you first made your own breakfast Liv?"

She looked away, but didn't miss a beat in answering him, "I was four. I had to climb on a chair to reach the toaster." Her eyes filled with tears again and feeling her body begin to shake he pulled her closer still, caressing her neck, trying to sooth her. "How did you guess?"

A single tear rolled down her cheek and he wiped it away, smiling sadly, "A hunch. Your mother was drunk right?"

"There weren't many mornings where she wasn't." Olivia admitted softly, "Or else just too hungover to care. And I needed to eat."

"So you did it yourself." He thought of his kids when they were that age, with him and Kathy catering to their every whim. Christ, even now Maureen threw a hissy fit if her Pop Tart wasn't on the table when she finally deemed to join them after her daily extended morning bathroom routine. It killed him to think of Olivia having to prepare her own breakfast, plus Christ knows what else by herself.

As if reading his mind she nodded and then went on to detail exactly what else she had done, "I fed myself, braided my own hair, packed my own bag for kindergarten."

"She couldn't have hired a nanny?" He said questioningly, thinking that actually it might have been a simpler solution. It wasn't like they weren't an affluent family. Her mother - in spite of her alcoholism - was a successful woman.

Olivia shook her head, "If we'd had a nanny, if a nanny had seen how we lived, I'd have been in the care system before my 5th birthday. Besides we managed. There was a cleaning lady who came once a week and brought groceries, so the house was clean and we always had food. Even if I did have to make it myself." She added ruefully. "It didn't seem so bad back then."

He suspected she was trying to put a rosier tint on it than actually existed, her tears as she'd told him about her juvenile breakfast antics certainly seeming to point in that direction enough. But he also knew how hard it must to have been for her to confide that to him in the first place, and so didn't push it any further. One step at a time, that was all it needed.

This was Olivia. She wouldn't cope with anything more.

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She was glad when he let it drop. She didn't want to elaborate on her tumultuous early childhood days any further. It was embarrassing. Not what had actually happened, what she'd 'been through' but that she was making such a fuss over it. They saw kids every day who suffered much worse abuses, physical, and sexual. Having to make her own breakfast couldn't compete.

And so, they sat in silence for a while. Companionable silence. They drank their wine and he carried on holding her, running his hands over her neck and shoulders, just letting her rest and get her thoughts together. It felt good.

Too good really.

It wasn't sexual, at least that was what she kept telling herself, but at the same time, with each minute that passed she knew she was going to find it harder and harder to let him go. She just wanted to stay there in his arms forever, and that wasn't a healthy feeling, she knew that.

Eventually, reluctantly, she drained her glass and pulled away from him, suggesting that she get the two of them something to eat. She wasn't hungry herself, but she also knew that Elliot rarely turned down the offer of food, and she also figured that if she was busy bustling around the kitchen she couldn't be tangled up in an embrace with him, which, as far as she was concerned, would be safer all round.

He followed her into the kitchen and sat at the breakfast bar, watching her as she threw together a quick and easy pasta dish for their late night snack. However, just as she was adjusting the hob temperature, all set to leave it the pasta to simmer for a few minutes, she became aware that he was staring at her toaster, a grimace on his face, and it didn't take Einstein to work out why.

"You're obsessing over what I told you."

He sighed, "Do you blame me Liv? I just keep seeing you wobbling around, trying to balance on a chair that was bigger than you were."

His words were right on the money. She remembered it well, too well. Clinging onto the counter for dear life, terrified that the chair would crash down and make a noise and wake her mother. Digging a knife into the toaster to get the toast to pop out. Nearly setting light to the bread in an effort to get it the right colour. Just the way she liked it.

It was bloody miracle she'd lived through the experience. That said, she'd lived through worse.

She topped up both their glasses, moved to the breakfast bar to sit beside him.

"Eli…" That got his attention. He was never Eli. In fact, she suspected this was the first time she'd ever addressed him as such. It was a bit like his 'Liv' she supposed, saved only for the most special of occasions.

He reached for her hands, an act which was apparently second nature to him now, as indeed letting him take them was to her.

"What is it?"

She released one of her hands from his, picked up her glass, sipped her wine. A delaying tactic. A brief delaying tactic but one that lasted mere seconds.

"The… neglect." she forced the word out, because like victim before it, it seemed too huge although, somewhere, deep down inside, she knew it was accurate. "It wasn't the worst part. Its not the part that really hurt. I mean, I didn't know any different, and it wasn't her fault. She was sick."

How many times had she made that excuse? Let her mother off the hook because alcoholism was a sickness in its own way, and because, really, after what had happened to her, how could she possibly be held accountable? All the same, she expected Elliot to argue. Because he was a father, a damn good father, and she knew the things she'd told him were a million miles away from what he would consider to be acceptable parenting. He surprised her though. He didn't argue. Instead…

"Go on. Tell me."

"The reason she drank." Her words came out more shakily than she'd intended, and it was only then when she realised how close she was to crying again. She ploughed on, not wanting to stop now she'd started. "The reason she drank, and the act that made me, they were one of the same Eli." She felt the last tiny slip of composure that she still had in her disappear as her words came tumbling out. "Every day, she got up and she saw me. She saw me and she was reminded of him and so she drank. I wasn't her daughter, I was a sexually transmitted disease and she treated me in the only way she knew how. By getting smashed."

His arms were around her in seconds, but she couldn't bear it. She loved him, she needed him, but in that moment the fact he was touching her was too much. As memories of too many bad nights, too many bad days haunted her she pulled away and ran to the only place she'd ever felt safe as a child.

Into her bed.

Under the duvet. Right under.

Where no one could see her.

Where she didn't exist.

Where she couldn't cause any more pain.

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	4. Complicated

**Authors Notes - This one has been a while coming. Sorry. Nasty case of writers block while I tried to figure out where this was going. Now I know and I don't think Liv and Eli are very pleased with me! Hope you enjoy it!**

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He stood in the doorway to her bedroom, watching the duvet shake, and listening to the heartbreaking sobs that emitted from underneath it. He wanted to go to her, hold her and make all the pain go away, but her reaction in the kitchen meant he couldn't, and instead he was just left standing there helplessly, wanting to help her but not having the first clue what he should do.

He'd known it was bad, they all had. They'd watched her over time, every now and again attempting to prompt her to talk about her background and hitting a brick wall each time. Even after her mother died she'd given little away, keeping her defences up. But for all he'd worried about her constantly, he'd never suspected that it was this bad.

Her words echoed in his brain along with her sobs. "A sexually transmitted disease", that was how she saw herself, as an STD. Assumingly that was how she'd seen herself for a long time. Lived with the description day in and day out, ever since she was a child. He failed to see how she'd held it together as long as she had.

Not that she was holding it together anymore.

After a brief trip back to the kitchen to retrieve their glasses of wine, he returned to the bedroom and moved to perch, cautiously, on the edge of the bed. She clearly sensed his presence because her sobs paused briefly and her body stiffened.

"Liv." He said gently, he took a shot in the dark, laying his hand on the duvet where he thought, hoped, her back would be, and slowly rubbed it, like he did with his kids when they were upset, "You said you'd let me take care of you. I can't do that if I can't see you."

Silence. And then, slowly she appeared from underneath the duvet, her face red and blotchy from the tears she'd cried and looking like she could burst into tears again at any moment. He pulled her into his arms, engulfing her in a hug, and this time she let him, leaning into his embrace and sobbing like she was never going to stop.

He comforted her, as before, as he would have done with his kids. Rocking her, cradling her almost, planting soft kisses in her hair. "Liv." he murmured, "You can't think of yourself in that way. You can't hold yourself accountable for what either of your parents did. Its not your fault."

"It is my fault!" She didn't remove herself from his arms, but he could tell from the way that she snapped at him that she was more withdrawn and less open to accepting help than she had been before, "She had to face me every day. Every day she looked at me and relived what happened to her. If there'd been no me, she'd have had a fighting chance of moving on. She never should have had me. She should have had a termination."

"Did she tell you that?" He asked, wondering if the termination idea was another little gem that Mrs Benson had chosen to throw at her daughter in a drunken row. After hearing how she'd broken the news about Olivia's father he wouldn't have put it past her, but Olivia shook her head.

"No." She seemed more subdued now, laying in his arms numbly, even the tears had stopped flowing, "She always went to great lengths to say quite the opposite. But her eyes told a different story. I knew. She'd have been better off without me. She might even still be alive."

"Maybe." He saw her surprise as he agreed with her, and understood why; it was hardly the sensitive, supportive response she might have expected from him but, at the same time there was no point in trying to sugar coat the situation, she'd been living through the nightmare for too long for that to work. Beside which, he hadn't finished…

"Or maybe she'd have ended up dead in a gutter years ago." He caught her questioning glance and so continued, "You said it yourself, she didn't want you taken into care, so maybe you were the reason she hung on in there when she quite easily could have given up and ended it all, no matter what you reminded her of." She didn't respond and so, having reached for her glass of wine and pushed it into her hand, he ploughed on, "Of course Liv, its all academic."

She sipped her wine, refusing to take her eyes off of him, and when she spoke it was softly, hesitantly, a million miles away from the confident, often verging on cocky detective he knew so well.

"Academic how?"

He shrugged, "She's dead." He knew his tone was way too matter of fact considering the content, but he didn't see there was any other way of getting through to her, she was just too bloody stubborn. And actually, to her credit, there were no girlie histrionics in response. Just a cool calm look. A questioning look. A "what are you saying?" without her needing to say a word.

He reached out, lay his hand on her shoulder, "You're alive Olivia, and you have so much to give. Its too late to save her, so why destroy yourself over something you can't control."

She took another swig of her drink, and then placed the glass back on the bedside table and leaned into him, her hand on his chest, her eyes staring directly into his, "Who says I'm destroying myself?"

The answer was once again in her behaviour, in some ways subtle, in others just so blatantly obvious. And again he knew what he had to do. Hated it on one level. No, several levels. For one, he hated hurting her, for two, what hot blooded male could honestly say he'd turn down Olivia Benson twice in one night without a hint of regret. Still, regret or no, he had to. For the kids, for Kathy, for Olivia herself.

He took her hand, the one that had rapidly gone from just resting on his chest to gently caressing it through the cotton of his shirt, "Olivia," his voice was gentle, but firm, there was no other way to be, "if I leave this hand where it is, within two minutes its going to be inside my shirt," he saw her open her mouth to protest and so silenced her with a look that he used to direct her eyes to their legs which somewhere in the previous minute or so had become entwined, and then, to further labour his point - anything to get her to stop - he added, "And you have your "fuck me" eyes on."

That was enough. The crunch point. The one that made her pull away, clearly humiliated to Hell for the second time in the space of the evening. Her fuck me look quickly becoming the look of someone who wanted to curl up and die and although it pained him, it only served to prove his point.

"You're saying you're destroying yourself Liv. With your actions. Your behaviour."

There was no denial from her this time, no attempt to rebuff his suggestion that she was hitting on him. Instead, with her eyes fixed firmly on the ceiling - anything to avoid actually looking at him he supposed - she spoke, sounding more like a sulky teenager than his long time partner, "Is it that wrong to want you? Are you telling me that you've never once glanced at my ass as we've been walking down the street."

He chuckled softly, in spite of the tension between them, he couldn't help himself.

"Of course I've looked at your ass."

That got her attention as her gaze swung round sharply, clearly bemused by his confession.

"it's a good ass Olivia." He said gently, almost playfully, wanting to get her away from the place where she saw him as the enemy, "I like to look. And honestly, if you were just checking me out during the good times I wouldn't be worried. But you don't. Only when things are bad. When you're in self destruct mode, which seems to be most of the time these days, so don't try to tell me you're not destroying yourself. Because you are."

He paused then, waited for a response but none was forthcoming, instead she got to her feet and headed back into the kitchen without another word.

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She was being a bitch to him. An 'A' grade bitch with a 100% GPA in advanced bitchery. But she couldn't help how she felt. The embarrassment, the humiliation, the fact that he was calling her out on every move she made, not to mention the way he seemed to have a clearer insight into what was going on in her head than she did. It wasn't a comfortable feeling having him that far inside her brain.

She busied herself with the meal she'd begun preparing previously, stirring the pasta sauce and throwing together a salad. She quickly became aware that he'd joined her although he didn't speak, instead just placing their glasses on the counter and topping them up from the now half empty bottle.

The silence continued. They were used to silences, were good at them in fact. They were so close that quite often, especially when working a case, they didn't need to speak because they instinctively knew what the other was thinking. Plus, their silences were generally companionable, although that wasn't the case with this particular one.

This one was frosty, Olivia thought, and full of expectation and dread, as they each waited for the other to speak first. He was out of luck on that one though. She had nothing left to say to him.

He must have sensed that in the end because, eventually, sounding almost reluctant he started the conversation that thus far she'd avoided.

"Talk to me Liv."

She looked up at him coolly, her response measured, "What do you want me to say? That I don't blame myself for my mother's death? That I don't hate myself for who my father is? That I'm so over it all and I'm going to stop hitting on you?" She didn't intend to sound angry, but the emotion certainly started creeping in the longer she went on, "Its not going to happen Elliot. I can't just switch it off because you've told me I'm wrong to feel that way. Its easy for you to stand there and say that, but you haven't lived my life."

She picked up her glass of wine, and knocked it back in one, instantly hating herself for the action as in doing so she reminded herself so much of the mother she grew up with, and that alone was enough to get the tears flowing all over again, "You've not watched your drunk of a mother cry herself to sleep because of who you are and where you came from. You don't have to wake up every day knowing that you're half vic, half perp. And you'll never know how I feel about you because I'm not the only person in your life that means anything to you. The only person who cares about you. You've got Kathy, I don't." The minute she started talking about him, about what he meant to her, she regretted it instantly, but it was too late to stop, the floodgates were down, the words were already flowing, "I'm alone Elliot, you're all I have. You mean the world to me, and if that makes me behave inappropriately around you then I'm sorry, but I have never needed anyone more than I need you. I need you so badly that it makes me crazy."

It was not a confession she'd meant to make. Not at that moment, not ever. It wasn't one she'd ever truly admitted to herself until that point, and she knew she should never ever have done so to him. He already clearly felt responsible enough for her, without her piling on the pressure. After all, she wasn't his main priority, not by a long shot. There was Kathy, and Maureen, Kathleen and the twins. He was a husband, a father. Being her partner came along way down his list of priorities.

She sighed, lifted her head from her its position in her hands where it had been buried since her final words had left her lips and looked at him apologetically,

"Elliot, I'm sorry. I should never…"

He moved to her side, putting his arms around her waist, "Don't you go apologising. I wanted you to talk, you talked, and Jesus Olivia, I'm the one who should be sorry."

His apology surprised her, not least because she failed to see just what it was he should be sorry for. "You didn't do anything wrong." she said gently.

He sighed to then, "Yeah I did. I broke you, and that was what I intended to do, I wanted you to talk and you did. But I hadn't given any thought to what came next." He looked bashful, "I just thought if you talked things might be ok. How dumb was I?"

"Not dumb." She objected, "But, naïve. All the same," she added, "its my fault. You shouldn't have to be looking after me. You're out of your depth, and there's too much potential for this to get messy." She looked down at his arms wrapped around her, then behind her to where his hands were caressing her lower back dangerously close to her Elliot proclaimed 'good ass', "Weren't you the one who just called me out for inappropriate touching?"

He shrugged, "Yeah, I guess, but I want to comfort you Liv."

She wanted his comfort, for all the anger, the resentment, she wanted it, needed it. But at the same time…

"You're giving me mixed signals Eli." She moved away from him, although the truth was it was the last thing she really wanted to do. She took the pan of pasta from the hob and started to drain it, waiting for a response from him. But none came. She looked up at him, "Its not helpful."

He put his head in his hands then and when he looked up again, she realised he looked as tired and drained as she felt. He smiled at her sadly, "Its complicated Livvy."

"Livvy?" That was a new one. Benson, yes. Olivia, yes. Liv, on very special occasions, but never ever Livvy.

Again he shrugged, repeating his earlier words, "Its complicated. We're complicated."

She flipped the pasta from the sieve, out onto two plates, although she was starting to doubt either of them would have much of an appetite if the conversation carried on in the vein that it was. "We're complicated?" She asked, putting more emphasis on the first word than the second, "And there was me thinking that it was just me who was complicating matters with my little port slash fuck in a storm act."

"Touche." He fiddled nervously with the stem of his wine glass, suddenly quiet and abashed, almost reluctant to speak, leaving her curious, if not damn right concerned as to what was coming next.

"If I didn't care about you, if I didn't find you so incredibly hard to resist, if I didn't love you, then you hitting on me wouldn't be an issue. But I do, I do, and I do, so actually, yes Olivia, _we_ are very very fucking complicated."

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	5. Pictures

**Authors Notes - I actually msged Stebson yesterday and mentioned that my various pairings were writing themselves, and I can safely say that that's incredibly true of this chapter. All the same, I hope you like it!**

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He didn't have chance to consider the consequences of his words in the first instance as Olivia stole the moment making her shock at them known by letting the pan in her hand clatter to the floor, covering herself with pasta sauce as she did so.

"Are you ok?" He asked hesitantly, not sure whether he was asking about her physical or mental state, "Did you burn yourself?"

She glanced down then, looking at the red stains all over her shirt and pants, as if she'd not registered the spillage until he pointed it out. Even then though, her mind was on other things.

"You used the 'L' word. You used the 'L' word about me."

He nodded slowly, not about to deny it, although he sensed they'd be having a little chat regarding definitions before the night was out, a fact that was confirmed when his partner spoke again.

"If that's not confusing things Elliot, then I don't know what is."

He knelt down then, picking up the pan and tossing it in the sink, before grabbing a cloth to clean the floor. Only then did he offer any kind of reply.

"I know Liv. And we'll talk about it. But I can't talk to you while you're looking like the victim of a frenzied knife attack. Go and get changed, I'll sort out here and then we'll talk."

She seemed to be complying, moving in the direction of the bedroom, but when she reached the door she stopped abruptly, "What about dinner?"

Elliot surveyed the mess on her clothes and the floor, not to mention the congealing pasta on their plates which, with one thing and another had clearly been overcooked in the first place.

"I'll call out for pizza."

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Olivia stepped out of her tomato stained clothes, leaving them in a heap on the bathroom floor. It wasn't her usual style, and she'd regret it in the morning when they were stained beyond repair but she had neither the energy nor inclination to deal with them at that moment. There were more important things going on.

Elliot loved her. That's what he'd said. He loved her.

Christ, even she hadn't gone that far.

Of course, it didn't mean anything. How could it? He was married. And yet, he'd still said it. He'd said he loved her. Unasked, unprompted, he'd just spewed it out without warning and then had the audacity to look shocked when she'd tossed the contents of a jar of Joseph's Pasta Sauce down her front.

Where the hell had all this come from? One minute they were just doing their thing, working a case and the next… everything had changed. Or at least it felt like it had. If this was what confiding in people resulted in, she wouldn't be doing it again; as Elliot said; it was just too damn complicated.

The pasta sauce had soaked through to her underwear so she peeled that off too, throwing on her bathrobe which was hanging on the back of the bathroom door. Any other time that might have been enough and she might have headed back to Elliot as she was – he'd never have known what was or wasn't on under the robe – but tonight, with everything that had been said, she felt too self conscious so headed for her room to look for something less revealing to put on.

When she got there, before she got as far as the wardrobe, her attention was caught by the photos she kept on her chest of drawers, next to the TV set, at the end of the bed. She'd never questioned the significance of them until that night but as she looked at them she realized the three of them taken as one painted an interesting overall picture.

There was her. Alone; at her graduation from the academy; grinning from ear to ear as she displayed her badge and modelled her pristine new uniform.

Then there was her with her SVU colleagues; her with Munch, Elliot, Cragen and Monique, taken at their one and only ever company picnic. They were sprawled out in the sunshine on a rug that contained a hell of a lot more beer bottles than it did picnic food, looking all rather pink and a little worse for wear.

The last picture was her with Elliot, and was without doubt her favourite of the three. It was a candid shot, taken by Munch late one night when they'd been working on a case, nonstop for over 36 hours. They were on the sofa in the soft interview room, comparing witness statements, Elliot sat on one end and Olivia lying down with her head resting on his lap, the floor around them littered with takeaway boxes. She was wearing one of his old marine T-shirts that she'd pinched out of his locker when her suit had become to grimy to wear any longer. They were both clearly suffering from lack of sleep and looked like wrecks and yet the pictured summed up their partnership perfectly; their bond; their closeness.

Those pictures said it all. The job that defined who she was, the colleagues who took the place of her family, and Elliot…

Elliot…

He was her everything.

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Elliot ordered the pizza, not bothering to ask Olivia what she wanted. Some thing's went without saying, and he didn't remember a pizza order they'd made in the history of their partnership that hadn't considered of a large half and half pizza, half meat feast (him), half ham and black olives (her), a tear and share garlic bread and a bottle of coke; the coke being particularly necessary when they found themselves working a case long into the night.

With that done, he finished cleaning the kitchen floor and then moved back into the living room, taking their drinks in with him and sitting down to wait for her, although to a degree he could quite happily have waited all night, anything to avoid the conversation that was going to follow. Although, truth be told, the damage was done and had been from the second he'd opened his big mouth, and, ultimately, it needed to be done. No matter how bad things got, Olivia needed to understand exactly the effect she was having on him. Before it got any further out of hand.

While he waited he picked up a photo album that sat on the coffee table, more for something to do than anything else, opened it and began flicking through the pages.

The photos, and the captions underneath, quickly told him what he was looking at. The first photo was old, yellowing and was of a tiny baby, lying in an incubator. Underneath, in an untidy scrawl was written,

"MY little Olivia."

The underlining of the 'my' was telling. A desperate attempt by a desperate woman to disassociate her new born daughter from her rapist father he presumed. No doubt Olivia had figured the same when she read it. Poor kid.

He turned the page, saw a little version of Olivia looking up at him, all big wide eyes and cute little sailor dress with anchors on the collar. She was sat on a blanket and the caption read, "Olivia. Company picnic. Summer '66."

"They're nearly all of company picnics." A voice, said, breaking into Elliot's thoughts. He looked up to see Olivia herself, the adult version, standing in the doorway to the room, wearing a pair of sweats, "They are?" He asked, although he'd actually figured out for himself that they probably would be.

She nodded, "Yeah, those, and corporate fun days, and take your daughter to work events. Pretty much the only time I was worth taking a picture of I guess; when people were looking." She sat beside him, and although he knew that it was the last thing he should be doing, he wrapped his arm around her shoulder, feeling for her too much because of what she was saying not to.

He flicked through the album some more, desperately trying to find a picture that disproved what she was saying, feeling a sense of relief come over him as he landed on a photo of her about aged 5 he guessed, dressed in her school uniform, "Not true." He said gently, "There's this one."

Olivia shrugged, "She was probably having a lucid day. In fact," she peered down at the photo, "she must have been. I have braids. I didn't master those until later than that. Plus," she added, and he could hear the bitterness in her voice, "I'm clean. I struggled with the whole giving myself a 'good scrub' thing until I was about 6 and one of my teachers explained it to me."

He sighed, shutting the photo album, cursing himself for opening it in the first place, and putting it back down on the table, before returning his arm to her shoulder, gently rubbing her back and planting a gentle kiss in her hair. Again, it was wrong and he knew it, but how could it be so wrong when she needed it so badly. He just held her there, in his arms, wanting to give her all the love that she'd missed out on for so long.

"Liv," he said softly, still holding her, "your life has been pretty darn shit hasn't it?"

To his surprise, she laughed, not quite the reaction he'd been expecting, "Yes Elliot, it's been shit. But," she looked up at him with the same wide eyes he'd witnessed in the sailor dress photo, "then I met you. And," she added hastily, looking just the tiniest bit guilty, "that's not another come on, I'm just saying. You're the best thing that ever happened to me."

He took a deep breath, psyched himself up. That was his opening, his way in. "I'm pretty fond of you myself you know."

She smiled wistfully, reaching out to hold his hand, "I know. You said. You said you love me."

There was something about the way she said it that made him feel awkward, and he wasn't sure why. She was, after all, only quoting his own words back at him. All the same, it killed him to think that he'd given her any crazy kind of false hope.

"I do love you." He said cautiously, gently, "Because you get me Olivia. And I get you. Sometimes," he added, hoping he wasn't overstepping the mark, "I think you get me more than Kathy does. You understand me; because of what we do."

At his words, he felt Olivia stiffen in his arms, and she pulled back slightly, confusion clouding her face. "Right, so when you said you loved me, that was because I'm a cop. Cop mentality. So you love Munch too then yeah? And Fin? You'd tell them you love them?"

He supposed he'd asked for that. But then he'd known this was never going to be easy. He ignored the way her body had tensed away from him and instead pulled her closer still, and looked deep into her eyes, "It's not about being a cop Olivia. Yeah, that helps, but it's about us. How alike we are. How we click. Forget Munch and Fin. Forget Kathy. Since you came into my life we've been like two sides of the same coin. And that Livvy is love. Whether you like it or not, that's how I define it. As far as I'm concerned, real love? That's it."

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Things weren't getting any easier to understand. If Elliot had been attempting to uncomplicate the situation, to Olivia's mind he wasn't doing a particularly good job of it.

She pulled away from him again, and to her relief that time he let her. She got to her feet, pacing the room, feeling like a caged animal, trapped by all the confusion and doubt.

"So great." She knew she was being defensive again but she couldn't help it, "You've now told me you love me. Twice. Real love this time round. But I still don't know what you mean Elliot. Do you love me like Kathy? Or like your bratty kid sister? And what was that you said before about finding me impossible to resist? Where the hell does that come into it?"

Elliot shrugged, "Like I said, you have a great ass. You also have an amazing pair of breasts and a winning smile. If you were a guy, you'd find it pretty hard to resist you too."

Olivia felt like she was going to explode. From declarations of love to flippant, half assed comments about her figure in one foul swoop. She didn't have the first clue what was going on in Elliot's head and in all honesty was beginning to think she wasn't sure she wanted to.

"Elliot?" She said, desperately now, needing to know the truth once and for all, "What are you saying?"

He got to his feet to then, came over to her side and grabbed her hand, pulling her to him, almost scaring her with the ferocity with which he did so.

"What I'm saying Olivia." He said, sounding frustrated, "Is that I have spent so long fighting the feelings I have for you. I've tried to ignore the fact that we have this thing between us. I've tried to push away the fantasies of taking you in the locker room, on Cragen's desk, anywhere really. But really Liv, every time you come onto me, it gets that little bit harder. It gets that little bit difficult to stop myself from doing this."

There was a pause, and she could see on his face he was wrestling with his own conscience, but even then, even though she should have seen it coming, she didn't.

The first she knew of it was when his lips brushed against hers, as his fingers tangled themselves in her hair, and as his tongue parted her lips and the hand that wasn't busy in her hair slid down to her ass.

And then things weren't complicated. He was kissing her, and she wanted him to.

Simple as that.

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	6. Hell Hath No Fury

**Authors Note - Thanks as ever for the feedback! I love it, appreciate it, and need as much as I can get! :D **

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He realised his mistake the minute that she began to kiss him back.

He'd kissed her to shock her. To make her see that they had a real problem. To make her see how hellish she was making things for him.

It achieved none of those things though. Because instead of pulling away looking stunned she did kiss him back, hungrily, passionately.

He'd forgotten that such kisses even existed. He and Kathy just didn't have that connection anymore. He loved his wife but since they'd had kids, and he'd started working at the SVU they just didn't have the same type of relationship. It was loving, comfortable and companionable but it lacked fireworks.

The same could not be said of Olivia's kiss. It was fiery, intoxicating. Which was why, even though he knew he ought to be putting a stop to it for so many reasons, he didn't. Couldn't.

"Elliot…"

He'd heard her use his name so many times, but never like that. She was breathless, desperate… oh who was he kidding, what was the point in skirting around the truth… aroused. He felt her hands move to the buttons on his shirt and start to undo them. He groaned, "Olivia…"

It was the crunch point, he knew that. He was wrestling with whether it was going to be "Olivia, yes." or "Olivia, no.". He knew what it ought to be, and not just because he was a married man, but also because of every they'd discussed that evening. Because of everything she'd been through, because of how vulnerable she was. Because she needed someone to love her so badly.

He couldn't love her. Not like she needed. He could make love to her this once, that much would be easy; she wasn't the only one who was seriously aroused, but afterwards it would have to stop. A line would have to be drawn. And that… that could kill her…

"Olivia… no." He had to force himself to say it, no mean feat given the way she was planting kisses down his neck, onto his now bare chest. It was pretty obvious where she was headed.

He needed haven't bothered though, she completely ignored him. Carried on leaving her pretty little trail of kisses all down his body.

"Olivia." He was firmer the third time, grabbing her by the shoulders and yanking her upwards so he could talk to her face to face. She gave a shocked little yelp, startled by the sudden turn of events. He reached out, stroked her cheek, "I'm sorry Liv. We can't."

"Can't?" She pulled away from him, clearly pissed off with him, not for the first time that evening, "You kiss me like that and then you tell me we can't." She stalked over to the coffee table and picked up her wine glass, knocking back the contents. "I seem to recall you implying that I was tease earlier, but hells teeth Elliot, I've got nothing on you."

He sighed, hating the fact he was hurting her, when that was the last thing he wanted to do. "Liv," he said softly, "I'm married."

She sat down on the sofa and to his horror her eyes filled with tears.

"You were married when you kissed me."

He went and sat beside her, although keeping a distance between them, thinking that it was better to be err on the side of caution given the way he'd just screwed up so badly. He followed her lead, picking up his own glass again, although he could have done with something a lot stronger. "I know, and I was wrong to do so. Which is why I can't take it any further."

She glanced at him, but not his face, lower down, "I can't help noticing that your body isn't agreeing with you Elliot. There doesn't seem to be a lot of 'can't' going on in your pants."

In spite of the hell they were in, and the bitterness in her voice, he couldn't help laughing, although as much out of embarrassment as amusement, "Well observed Detective Benson." He smiled weakly at her, "What can I say? You got me pretty overheated."

She refilled her glass, and then shrugged, "Not overheated enough I guess."

"It came pretty close." He said gently. The wrong thing to say possibly, since he didn't want her thinking he could still be convinced, but he didn't want her feeling out and out rejected, not given how low she was feeling. He reached out, putting his hand on her knee, "You're really special to me Liv. But circumstances being what they are…"

She snorted, "Ok Elliot, I get it. I get that you're married. But I don't get why you kissed me."

His turn to shrug, "Big clever plan gone wrong. You weren't meant to like it." Even as he said it he knew how lame it sounded. How lame it felt. He could argue that he'd been trying to shock her but that didn't make it ring true. Deep down he knew why he'd kissed her, and it had nothing to do with making her stop coming on to him.

"You were angry." He blurted out, realising she deserved to know the truth. "And I find you angry, very very sexy." It was true. That was why butting heads with her on a case was always so incredibly rewarding. There was nothing sexier than Olivia Benson fired up and pissy. He'd always thought so. "I guess it just got too much. I stopped resisting. I'm sorry."

"It's a bit late for sorry." She snapped, the tears in her eyes finally falling, "Do you have any idea how good that felt to me? How badly I want it now?"

He didn't know for sure, but based on his own feelings he had a pretty good idea, even more so now she was in tears. The temptation was there to comfort her, to kiss the tears from her cheeks, to love her just for one night, but just as he'd known that would have been wrong while they were in the midst of the heat, he also knew it now. Even a simple comforting hug would have been out of order.

He'd shot himself well and truly in the foot. There was nothing left he could do to help her. He sighed, "I should probably go."

"I think that might be a good idea."

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She cried as he left. Cried even more so because he just did up his shirt and walked away, he didn't even look back. It made her feel weak and pathetic, but she couldn't stop it. She was just hurting too much.

When he was gone, she got to her feet. Headed to the kitchen and located a bottle of single malt the boys had bought her for her birthday. She rarely drank spirits when she was alone, had always viewed it as a slippery slope to walking in her mothers footsteps but tonight - just for tonight - she was prepared to make an exception.

She took the bottle and a tumbler back to the living room, throwing herself down on the sofa miserably. She felt like crap. Not to mention like she could explode at any minute with any one of a number of conflicting emotions. She was hurt, miserable, angry, confused, and frustrated. Yeah, definitely frustrated - in more ways than one.

It pained her to do so but she couldn't help reliving those amazing moments, the kiss, his roaming hands, their bodies tightly against one another. She couldn't remember ever being so turned on, so aroused, and she was paying the price now. Even after their row, even taking into account the way he'd walked away, her body was still crying out for him, so much so that she was tempted to go to the bedroom, lose the sweats and give herself the release she needed. The one he'd denied her.

But what was the point? How could her fingers ever compare to him? She'd cum, there was no doubt about that - she suspected it would take seconds, she was so turned on - but that was just a physical thing. Emotionally, mentally, it would just remind her of everything she was now lacking.

So. No. Masturbation not option, Malt Whisky was in fact the way forward. She'd drink herself to oblivion and get him out of her head that way.

It was the only way.

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She regretted it the next morning when she awoke on her living room floor, her head wedged, most uncomfortably under the coffee table and her back stiff from sleeping all night without a mattress.

Then there was the hangover. No soon had she struggled up into a sitting position she got the resounding urge to vomit. Hardly surprising given the empty whisky bottle that lay near by, taunting her with its very emptiness.

She got to her feet, heading to the bathroom and crumpling down by the toilet bowl as the contents of her stomach emptied herself into it. That, and a vast amount of mouthwash helped some but it didn't do anything to sate her banging head or the fact that the room felt like it was spinning.

She opened her bathroom cabinet, looking for paracetemol, ibruprofen, anything that might assist with the head situation. To her surprise, she found neither, in spite of being sure she'd had some previously. At first she assumed she'd just used them all up and forgotten, but then, when it occurred to her that her disposable razors were missing from the cup she kept them in, the pieces fell into place.

Elliot.

He must have taken a detour via the bathroom before he left, obviously having reached the conclusion that his rejection might have pushed her over the edge, egotistical bastard that he was.

She was almost pleased actually. It gave her even more reasons to be angry with him. She'd decided the night before, that being angry with him was far superior to any other emotion. Anger kept her warm. Everything else just let her cold.

Amusement added itself to her anger once she'd showered and went into her bedroom to dress, finding her gun still laying on her bedside table where she'd left it when she'd arrived home the night before. So Elliot was paranoid, but not that paranoid apparently. Idiot.

She dried her hair and then threw on some clothes. The quicker she got ready, the quicker she could get to the drugstore, the quicker she could get rid of her headache. Of course after the drugstore came work, and with work came Elliot which wasn't exactly something she was relishing, but short of requesting a transfer, there wasn't a lot she could do about it. She'd just have to swallow it.

She left her apartment, stepping over the pizza takeaway that she and Elliot had never got round to eating, that lay, congealing in the doorway. She'd not even bothered to answer the door to the delivery boy, scared it was Elliot coming back to ram his tongue down her throat again or do something else to completely confuse the issue just a little bit further.

Still, that was obviously wishful thinking on her part.

Elliot clearly didn't give a shit.

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He dreamt of her the entire night. Tossing and turning. Tortured by images of her. Her breasts, her butt, those legs. Of her on her knees, taking him in her mouth. Of her on top of him, underneath him. Moaning his name, clinging to him as she came.

It was hell.

He awoke early, a little after 5.30. He was hard, and horny, and he wanted her, but instead, settled for second best, shaking Kathy awake and taking her before she had chance to argue.

The arguing came later, as he emerged from the bathroom to find her slamming kitchen cupboards, and clattering plates and bowls to show her displeasure as she prepared breakfast. He tried to ignore her, making himself a coffee and flicking through the paper, but she wasn't prepared to give him an easy ride.

"You come in late." She blurted out suddenly, "Very late. You wake up Lizzie with your crashing around and don't bother to offer to settle her. You don't - even though you've woken me up - so much as give me a kiss or say hello, and then at 5.30am you wake me all over again because you fancy a fuck? Thanks Elliot, thanks a lot."

He groaned inwardly, seeing the justification for her anger now he'd had it all spelt out for him. And she didn't know the half of it. She'd didn't know the reason that he was so late home revolved around Olivia, or that the evening had finished with him kissing her and her attempting to rip his clothes off.

He was just doomed to have all the women in his life hate him.

Maureen was the next one, just after 7.45, when she flounced into the kitchen, wearing more eyeliner than he felt appropriate for a school girl and a skirt that left nothing to the imagination. Her pop tart wasn't on the table as she expected because Kathy had left Elliot doing while she dealt with Lizzie who was tearful and whiney having been woken up in the early hours of the morning, and he'd managed to burn the first one, nearly setting light to the kitchen in the process.

She looked at him, a look of disbelief and disgust on her face, "Where's my breakfast? Mom always has it ready by now."

He thought about Olivia. The cute little kid in the sailor dress. All the breakfasts, packed lunches and dinners she'd had to make when she was a fraction of Maureen's age. The cute little kid who grew into the attractive but emotionally broken woman he'd hurt so badly the night before.

He had to make it right. And quickly.

He turned to his daughter, "Stop being a spoilt little bitch and make your own breakfast Maureen. I'm going to work."

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She was overjoyed to see that he looked as miserable as she felt when he arrived at work. Well, maybe not overjoyed, but slightly comforted. She clocked him, but busied herself with paperwork, not wanting him to try and engage her in any kind of conversation. Especially not in the squad room.

She was out of luck. He came over to her desk, leant against it and just stood there, as if waiting for her to say something.

She didn't. Just carried on working. Pretended she'd not noticed his presence.

Eventually he cleared his throat to get her attention. She looked up questioningly, but still didn't speak to him. Let him do the running - she'd done enough of her own the night before.

He smiled at her nervously, "How are you?"

She leaned back on her chair, pretending to think about it, although she'd been planning her answer to that exact question since the second she'd arrived at work, "Well," she said, feigning pleasantness, "I have a headache and hairy legs but otherwise I'm doing good."

He sighed, looking pained, "Oh come on Liv, don't be mad."

"Why not?" She'd planned her response to that one too, "I thought you liked me mad. I thought you found it," she glanced over to Munch's desk where he was sat reading the paper, and lowered her voice, "very very sexy." She didn't give him chance to respond before ploughing on, "You owe me a box of paracetemol and a packet of razors. You're also a prick. You left my gun behind, I thought about chewing on it but decided you weren't worth it."

"I'm not worth it Liv." He reached out to touch her arm but she jerked it away, unable to bear the thought of his skin against hers. Unwilling to remember what that felt like, how good it was.

"Good, glad we agree on something." She picked up her the witness statement in front of her, turning her attention back to it, "Excuse me won't you, I have work to do."

She waited for him to leave, but he didn't. Just stood there, looking like a man clutching at straws and apparently eventually finding one. "I've got a possible witness on the Masterson case. Wanna come with me to talk to her?"

She shook her head, "Can't. Cragen's got me on desk duty in case you forgot, and after last night," she added, knowing she was about to hurt him but needing to, wanting him to feel a fraction of the hurt and rejection she was feeling, "I can't help thinking that that's a good thing."

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	7. Roles Reversed

**Authors Notes – Slight delay on this, because once again El and Liv seem to have taken the story and ran with it in a direction I wasn't planning. Mind you, they have convinced me to write a sequel when I eventually get done with this, so they're not all bad!**

**As ever, feedback rocks!**

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Olivia's words stuck with Elliot, all the time he was out on the street. He knew he only had himself to blame, for letting lust kick in when caution and compassion might have been better, but it didn't stop what she'd said hurting. Plus, he was deeply concerned that he'd blown it for good, and that this was it now. They'd end up at loggerheads forever.

By the time he'd seen his witness, and briefly followed up the lead, it was coming up to lunch time and he resolved to take a second crack at her, desperate to make things right. He went to the drug store, and a sandwich bar, on the way back to the precinct, and when he arrived in the squad room placed his purchases gingerly on Olivia's desk.

She looked from the items, to him, and Elliot figured that was a good start. At least she was responding to him now, as opposed to point blank ignoring him. She picked up the paracetmol and razors first, opening her desk drawer and placing them inside, before turning her attention to the meatball sub and energy drink he'd picked up her for lunch. 

"Retribution sandwich?" She said questioningly, "That's a new one." But Elliot couldn't help notice that she had it out of the packet and was taking a bite before he could respond. 

"I thought it might soak up your hangover." He explained, then u-turned, worried that she might see it as an accusation, "Well, you know, if you've got one." 

She laughed slightly, and although it was slight it was enough of a laugh to feel like progress, "You know I have. I look like crap." 

"You look beautiful." The words were out of Elliot's mouth before he could stop them and he instantly regretted them when he saw her grimace in response. He sighed, "Wrong thing to say?" 

She pushed her chair back, dumping the sandwich in the trash and getting to her feet. She gave him a cold look, "You know it was." And then she walked out of the squad room without another word. 

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She was on the roof when Elliot found her. She'd known that he'd follow but then in truth she'd almost wanted him to. Wanted to get him to a place where they could have it out, once and for all.

"Don't jump." He said, as he appeared on the opposite side of the roof to her, and to Olivia it seemed like he was only half joking.

"I'd push you off before I did." she retorted, certainly not joking. Not in the slightest.

He came up beside her, holding his hands up submissively, "No funny business. I just want to talk."

Olivia didn't look at him. It was too hard to do so. It was like torture, too much of a reminder of everything that had gone on the night before. Too much of a reminder of everything she wanted so badly. Instead, she just looked down, staring out down to the street below. "What makes you think there's anything left to talk about El?" She knew the second the words were out of her mouth that they were a mistake. If ever there was a chink in her armour it was using her pet name for him, and of course, he seized on it.

"You called me El. Not Stabler. That proves there's something left to save."

She sighed, again cursing her own stupidity. "All the same," She murmured softly, unable to keep the sadness out of her voice, "you can't make this better. You said it yourself its messy and complicated and we'd be better off leaving well alone."

"Liv," He reached out, touched her arm, and she let him, although it was against her better judgement, "I can't bear the thought of losing you."

That seemed hilarious to Olivia. HE was scared of losing HER? It was like not one single solitary word of hers from the night before had sunk into his thick skull. HE was scared of losing HER when he was the one who had people; a wife, kids, a family. He wasn't even beginning to imagine how scared she - the one who had no one but him - was that their friendship had been compromised beyond repair, and that he would end up walking out of her life, never to return. She was about to turn on him and unleash a rant to that effect when she realised they were no longer alone.

"What do you want Munch?" She asked their colleague who was stood awkwardly on the other side of the roof, obviously not having felt that he could interrupt.

"Cragen wants you downstairs. We've caught a case. Baby in a dumpster."

She jogged over to him, leaving Elliot behind, "Does this mean I'm off desk duty?"

Munch nodded, but there was no missing the curious look on his face, "What's going on with you and Elliot?"

There was no point lying to him, Munch was too smart and too suspicious for that so instead she looked at him pleadingly, appealing to his better nature, "I'd rather not discuss it if its all the same to you."

He shrugged, "Sure. Already forgotten."

She kissed his cheek, "Thanks Munch."

If only dealing with Elliot could be that easy.

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Much to Elliot's relief, they managed to work the case that afternoon like professionals. Olivia stopped her sniping and they just got down to the task in hand. The tension was still there, he could see that, but at least it was under the surface and not on display for all and sundry to witness.

A lot of that though was down to the case itself. All cases were serious, but there were those that allowed for a bit of joviality or personal interplay between the squad, and there were those that absolutely did not. This was one of the latter. There was an infant involved and it only took one look at the body, a bloodied and battered mess, for Elliot to realise that until they cracked the case, nothing else would be allowed to get in the way.

And so, they worked quietly and conscientiously, their relationship lacking its usual warmth, but still working as partners all the same.

And Elliot was glad she was there with him, wouldn't have handled it without her there. All infanticide cases were hell, and as a father particularly hit him where it hurt, but this was one of the worst he'd witnessed, particularly when the ME revealed the body had a whole catalogue of injuries going right back to birth. 4 months the poor little thing had lived and by the looks of it had been beaten daily. It was going to be one of 'those' cases; one of those that haunted him night and day for its duration, and then intermittently for the rest of his life.

Which was why, when they eventually called it a night, and he headed home, the last thing he needed to be greeted by was Kathy. Off on one. Wanting to know why he'd called their daughter a 'bitch' that morning. Expecting him to explain himself.

Yeah. Right. Babies found battered to death in dumpsters, children being neglected by their mothers, mere babies being left to fend for themselves, and he was being asked to explain himself because he told his spoilt 15 year old daughter a few home truths?

Kathy could dream on.

He didn't even bother taking his coat off, instead turning on heel and walking out of the house, Kathy's words still ringing in his ears.

He walked to Olivia's apartment, not kidding himself for one second that he didn't know where he was going. Not trying to pretend that he was looking for a bar, or an liquor store, or anything. He walked directly to her neighbourhood, climbed the steps to her building and hit the buzzer.

Initially, there was no answer. So he tried again. And then, over the intercom,

"I'm not about to sleep with you El, but if you want a heart to heart about the case, come on up."

He couldn't help smiling at that; at her apparent psychic intuition in knowing it was him, and the fact that the tenseness that had been apparent in her voice all day seemed to have lightened some what. Not to mention the fact that in spite of what was probably her better judgment, she was letting him in anyway.

He headed upstairs to her apartment and found the door open, and Olivia curled up on the couch in her pyjamas, with a cot blanket over her legs. He stood awkwardly in the doorway waiting for further instructions, "Hi."

She sighed, and then sitting up, patted the space on the sofa beside her, waiting until he came and sat down before she finally spoke, "I knew you'd come."

His turn to sigh, "I can't stop picturing the baby Liv."

She nodded, "Me too." She turned her head slightly to look at him, and he felt self conscious as she stared, apparently reading his face, "You had a row with Kathy?"

He laughed slightly at that, finding it almost unnerving that she knew him so well, although it felt good too. Having someone who could read you like a book, having someone who knew you so well that you didn't even have to speak for them to know what the problem was. "How did you know?"

Olivia got to her feet, heading towards the kitchen, and he had no doubt that she'd be returning with a bottle of wine, "Partner intuition Stabler, partner intuition."

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She knew that the last thing she ought to be doing after the night before was entertaining him, not least in her pyjamas. But she also knew what infanticide cases did to Elliot, how much they wrecked his head, and she wasn't about to abandon him at that moment, no matter how pissed she'd been at him, or how dangerous him being there, in her apartment, could be perceived to be.

She grabbed a bottle of red and two glasses from the kitchen before stopping briefly in the hallway to stare in the large oval mirror that hung there and to give her reflection a damn good pep talk. No talking about her past. No hand holding. No physical contact. No kisses, not even those platonic ones he was so fond of planting in her hair. Just shop talk. The baby. Nothing personal.

Pep talk done, she made her way back to him, and found him sat on the couch still, his head in his hands, his shoulders shaking, as he sobbed silent tears. Sighing, and mentally striking the physical contact condition from her list, she sat beside him and wrapped her arm around his shoulder, pulling him close to her, holding him as he cried.

When he was done, he pulled away, looking embarrassed as he tended to on the very rare occasions that he broke down in front of her. She reached for his hand, striking that too off the list and then hesitantly spoke,

"The baby? Or Kathy?"

He wiped his eyes, taking a deep breath so she knew what was coming even before he said it,

"You."

"Me?" She sloshed the wine into the glasses, keeping herself busy, avoiding looking at him. Trying to be the strong one. The one who wasn't going to 'give into it' all over again.

"You." He took the bottle from her hands, placing it down on the table and then taking her hands in his, "You're the reason the baby is hitting me so hard. And you're the reason I fought with Kathy. Its all you Olivia. Everything comes back to you."

She let go of his hands, got to her feet. Still desperate to do that right thing, and to an extent still smarting from the events of the night before, "And yet, its not me you're married to. So this conversation is academic."

There was a long long silence. And then Elliot dropped his bombshell.

"But the conversation doesn't have to be academic. I could be married to you. If that's what you want…"

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He hadn't thought the words through before he said them, and therefore, they should have come as of much of a shock to him as they clearly did to her, but if anything his surprise came from the fact that they weren't a shock. They felt… right.

Not that Olivia thought so. Not in the slightest. Not judging by the way she exploded.

"You have got to be fucking kidding." She was pacing the floor, just as she had been doing the night before when he'd finally grabbed her and kissed her, "Last night you wouldn't even sleep with me, tonight, you're leaving your wife and kids. Over what? A baby in a dumpster who you - I assume - link back to me in some way because I too had a shitty start in life? That's what's turned you around? Made you want me? Well you can forget it. I'm no one's sympathy screw Elliot."

Elliot groaned, wondering when it had become law that he couldn't open his mouth without her getting upset or misinterpreting his words. He took a deep breath and then tried again.

"Tonight, I was so cut up about you and the case. And I went home to my wife looking for support, looking for someone I could lean on. And was she there for me? Was she hell? She didn't even see I was upset. She didn't see I was hurting. But you, even though you're pissed at me, you did Liv. You were here for me, with your gentle hugs and your comforting words. Because you know me. Inside out."

"I see." She sat back down beside him, but her tone was still fairly frosty. She picked up her glass and sipped it, before turning to look at him, "I thought that hitting on your partner when you're down is considered unacceptable."

Touche.

He reached out; lay his hand over hers, "Maybe I was wrong Liv."

"And maybe," she said slowly, "you were right all along. How could we ever build a relationship based on what we have?"

He wasn't prepared to give her that one, "I think that's a weak argument considering the fact we already have."

She glared at him, "A working relationship Elliot. A working relationship."

He shook his head, "It's more than that. And you know it."

"No!" She exploded again, but he grabbed her hand before she could get back onto her feet and start the pacing thing all over again. She stayed sitting but her rant continued, "I know that you're married, and that it could never work, and that you were the one who told me that a thousand times, and God Elliot…" her eyes filled with tears and much as he hated himself for it, it didn't make him wish he could retract his words, "what the hell do you think you're doing here? Why are you doing this?"

As her tears began to fall, he reached out and pulled her to him, cradling her in his arms, "Because Liv, I meant what I said on the roof today. I don't want to lose you… but more than that, I want to be with you."

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She felt like a fool for doing so, but she stayed in his arms, although her head was screaming at her to move away. She knew she should. Knew she needed to fight against her heart which had lost her plot roughly around the point where Elliot told her that she could be his wife. But it had been a crap day, following on from yet another crap day and truth be known, she needed it. Needed him.

He kissed the tears from her cheeks and when she finally stopped crying he let loose with another of the bombshells that he seemed to be in the habit of dropping so well.

"Let me love you Livvy."

Even her heart knew that was trouble, not least because her brain was still shrieking "sympathy screw" at the two of them. It wasn't that she didn't want him, not for a minute. God, in many ways it was all she wanted. But she'd had her fingers burnt the night before, and not only that but…

"You can't leave your wife and kids because I had a lousy mother."

He looked confused at her words, and although she was sure it was completely genuine, it didn't change the hard facts,

"You've never been interested in me like this, until now. Until last night when I told you what my childhood was like. When you realised how messed up I am. And yeah," she held her hand up, silencing protests she knew were coming, "you'd looked at my ass, you'd imagined what it might be like to grope my breasts but you never once thought about leaving Kathy. And you shouldn't be thinking that way now…" She stroked his cheek, "I know what you're scared of. You gave that away when you stole the paracetemol from my bathroom last night. But I'm stronger than that, and you don't have to marry me to stop me committing suicide. I've lived with my life a long time, and I don't intend to go anywhere any time soon. Capische?"

He smiled, "Capische."

She was just thinking that she was glad it was over. That there would be no further debate and that they'd be able to move on from that moment, when he spoke again, "Except, my wanting to be with you has so little to do with losing you Liv, and everything to do with my wanting to be with you. Why can't you see that?"

She groaned, out loud, needing him to see how frustrated she was with his continued insistence, the fact that he wouldn't let it go, "Because you're not giving me any evidence to the contrary!"

"Oh no?" He retorted, bringing her further still into his embrace and gently nuzzling her neck before gently brushing his lips against hers, "How about this?"

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	8. The Beginning

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He thought she'd fight against it, if not because she wanted to then as payback for the night before. But as he kissed her, parting his lips with the tip of the his tongue before slowly entwining it with hers, she didn't fight back, not by a long shot.

She started to respond, react, kiss him back.

He brought his arm around her, pulled her closer to him, tentatively stroking her back with the tips of his fingers. She whimpered slightly, which had to be - if he was honest - the most erotic sound in the world and he kissed her more passionately as he lowered her back down onto the couch.

He pulled back then, wanting to look at her properly for so many reasons. Because she was beautiful, to check she wasn't uncomfortable or uncertain. So many reasons but not the one she expected.

"You're changing your mind." She said accusingly, wrapping her arms around herself in a gesture that he suspected was meant to protect her on two levels, one providing an barrier between he and she but also shielding her nipples that had suddenly become conspicuous through her pyjamas from his view.

Her words couldn't have been further from the truth and so he reached out and unwrapped her arms, shaking his head as he did so, "No. Never. Not now." He let her arms fall to her sides and then moved his hands to the buttons of her pyjama top and began to undo them.

Olivia closed her eyes, and he had no idea if it was in anticipation or if she was steeling herself to reject him, the answer only coming when he'd finished with the buttons and slid his hands up her torso, pushing her top aside to reveal what was underneath.

"I… I…" she opened her eyes and his heart sank as he saw they were glistening with tears, "I can't. El, if this doesn't work out and I lose you… I…" A tear rolled down her cheek and incredibly, in a moment where his partner was laying half naked in front of him it was that tear which was the entire focus of his attentions. Sliding his hands back down to her waist he leant forward, kissing the tear away.

"We're going to make it work Liv. I've never been more certain of anything in my life." He let his hands drift further down, and used them to move her legs apart, making a space so he could position his own legs between them as he leant in further still so he was on top of her, although carrying his own weight by supporting himself with his arm. He lowered his lips to hers and kissed her again, lovingly, tenderly yet passionately.

"I want you so bad baby. Please…"

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She was trying so hard to fight it. Knew she should. Knew it was the only sensible thing to do. But he was kissing her, and it felt so good… and their legs were entwined and… he'd brought one of his hands up between them, to her breasts and he was touching her… and…

She couldn't stop. And it wasn't just the sex, it wasn't just the kissing or the touching or anything physical. Yes, they were nice, they were so nice, but it was more than that.

He wanted her. He'd said it. She'd heard him. He wanted her, and he wanted to marry her, and be with her and… Well everything, everything she'd ever wanted.

And she knew she was a fool. He'd said those words to Kathy once, and now where was he? On her sofa, kissing her, undressing her, caressing her, leading her to her bed. He was cheating on his wife. Hardly the Mr Perfect her heart was painting him to be. But…

She tumbled down onto the bed, powerless as he fell down beside her, took her in his arms again, looked at her in the way she'd always wanted him to look at her. And that was that. End of story. She knew there was no way back.

He wanted her - at least he said he did - and she wanted him too.

It was only later, after he'd made love to her so tenderly and lovingly, that she doubted her decision. Wondered if she'd done the right thing. Not in the first instance of course, in the first instance the angels were singing and her body was in ecstasy, and his arms felt so amazing around her that quite frankly his wife could have been standing there in front of them and she'd still have been convinced that making love was the best thing they'd ever done. But no, the doubts came later.

She was still in his arms, but they were sat up, propped up by her array of white fluffed up pillows. She was sat between his legs under the duvet, her back resting against his chest, her head tucked under his chin, as they lay together in companionable silence, just enjoying the fact that after two long years of unresolved sexual tension, close friendship and their unique emotional bond, they'd finally knocked down all the barriers, crossed all the lines.

She'd never felt happier.

Until his finger tips started tracing patterns on her thighs.

She tensed up. Instantly. She knew what he was doing, after all she'd done it enough times herself, self consciously, feeling ashamed, she knew the patterns inside out.

Her gut instinct was to pull away. Throw a fit. However, she decided against doing so, because if there was a hope in hell of the moment being the beginning of the rest of their lives together, she didn't want to wreck it.

Instead, she slid her hands over his, stopped them in their tracks.

"If that wasn't a sympathy screw," She said softly, keeping her tone as neutral soft and calm as she could manage, "then why are you obsessing over two decade old self harm scars?"

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He saw no point in denying it. She'd got him bang to rights and they both knew it. So instead, he entwined his fingers with hers and squeezed them tightly.

"If the situation was reversed wouldn't you care? Wouldn't it hurt you that you'd not been around to stop me doing something like that."

She sighed, "How could you have been around Elliot? I was a kid."

God, she was unbelievably good at missing the point when it suited her. He planted little kisses in the crown of her hair, wanting to relax her and show how much he cared about her and then he uttered the words he hoped would convince her.

"When you love someone, and you know they've been hurt, you'd do anything to change things, no matter how unrealistic it might seem."

Another sigh. A heavy one.

"Another 'L' bomb El? Really?"

It was frustrating but he wasn't sure why he'd ever thought it would be any different. She may have spent two years chasing him, but Olivia, by her own volition liked doing the running. Once she caught a man, it changed everything. This was the girl who had broken up with a man for making breakfast, so if they were going to be together he was going to have to do some pretty serious work to stop her running in the other direction.

And that serious work was about to take the form of shear bloody mindedness.

"Yeah. An 'L' bomb. Would you prefer me to use something else? Another word?" He dipped his head, pressed his lips to her neck, upping the ante a little, "I'm gonna marry you Liv. That virtually makes you my fiancee. But if you don't like love I'm happy to compromise… what would you like? I like you… I fancy you… I'm fond of… I care for you… I think you're hot?"

As it happened, she liked none of his suggestions, choosing instead to focus on his earlier point, "How can I be your fiancee when you still have a wife?"

It was a fair question he guessed, one that deserved a good answer.

"I'll get divorced. It won't happen overnight, but I'll do it." He cupped his hand under her chin, using it to tilt her head back so he could kiss her again, "I'll talk to Kathy tomorrow. I promise. I want to be with you Liv."

She eyed him sceptically, and he wondered what it would take to make her actually believe him. Because he meant it, he really did. If he had any doubts they were centred around his children, and what their parents divorce would do to them, but he and Kathy could support them, it wouldn't be so bad. And Kathy? Well, she'd probably seen this coming, and in all honesty, Olivia was what mattered… she was the one who really needed him, whether she was willing to admit it or not.

And at that moment though, she was clearly struggling with it, pulling away from him, shaking her head with bewilderment.

"How can this be happening? I mean, I want to be with you too but… how? It can't that that easy."

He pulled her back into his arms, stroking her cheek, "We'll make it work Liv." He reassured her, "I know it sounds crazy, but we will… one day at a time…"

"You promise?" There were tears in her eyes once again but Elliot couldn't help but seize on the hope in her voice, the fact she so obviously wanted and needed to be with him, "Because if it doesn't work and I lose you…"

He never found out what the result of her losing him would be because he silenced her with a kiss before telling her, reassuringly,

"You're not going to lose me. I'm telling you Liv, this is just the beginning…"

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**Tada, done! Well. Kind of. Cos there's a sequel planned. Its called 'Champagne' (yeah, I'm sticking with the beverage theme!) and its coming to very soon! To give you a sneak preview, its going to look at how things are going with Liv and Eli a year after the events of Coffee, but that's pretty much all I can give you at the moment, not least, because as we've learnt while I was writing this one, I NEVER plan ahead!**

**Thank you everyone for reading! As this was my first SVU fic it was so nice to get lots of feedback, it really was appreciated!**

**Big Loves**

**Donna x**


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